The Buffalo News : Entertainment

Frankie Valli’s still got it going on with the Four Seasons. (Updated: 10/30/09 7:00 AM )

BERLIN — Lucky U2 fans have found what they were looking for. (Updated: 10/29/09 7:11 AM )

There isn’t much available evidence suggesting that the early 20th century Danish composer Johan Amberg wrote many scores. Still, one of the short pieces he did write was delightful enough to provide inspiration for the Amberg Quartet, the local ensemble that discovered this marvelous (albeit lightweight) suite and made it the starting point for their repertoire. (Updated: 10/28/09 7:13 AM )

NEW YORK—The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony is generally one of the year’s swankiest, most exclusive affairs— marked by once-in-a-lifetime collaborations, stunning arguments and $1,500-a-plate dinners at the Waldorf-Astoria. (Updated: 10/27/09 7:36 AM )

The superlative jazz pianist Mike Jones has deep roots in Western New York, but a few years back, he picked up stakes to go work and live in Las Vegas. Nowadays his visits here are infrequent, which makes them just that much more imperative that jazz piano fans in these environs catch him when they can. (Updated: 11/15/09 8:12 AM )

Chris Botti is a jazz trumpet player but, more importantly, he’s a showman. His sold-out show Saturday night in Kleinhans Music Hall probably ranked up there with the great vaudeville acts. (Updated: 11/15/09 8:12 AM )

Chris Botti is a jazz trumpet player but, more importantly, he’s a showman. His sold-out show Saturday night in Kleinhans Music Hall probably ranked up there with the great vaudeville acts. (Updated: 10/25/09 7:32 AM )

The superlative jazz pianist Mike Jones has deep roots in Western New York, but a few years back, he picked up stakes to go work and live in Las Vegas. Nowadays his visits here are infrequent, which makes them just that much more imperative that jazz piano fans in these environs catch him when they can. (Updated: 10/25/09 7:32 AM )

Jazz (Updated: 10/25/09 4:06 PM )

It’s not easy becoming Bjorn Ulvaeus. ¶ When Mark Thomas visits UB’s Center for the Arts on Nov. 9, it will take him a solid hour to step into character as the lead singer of the Swedish band ABBA. Thomas, the force behind the group ABBA Mania, must don his blond wig, which duplicates Ulvaeus’ legendary bowl haircut. He has to apply chest hair, a nod to an era that valued that look. His speech has to change, too. He has to dump his thick Welsh accent and take on a thick Swedish accent. ¶ Finally, he has to get inside Ulvaeus’ mind. ¶ “It’s not just a physical thing,” Thomas says earnestly on the phone from Wales. “It’s getting yourself psyched up for the show as well. Even having spent two years writing the show and knowing just how well these songs are crafted, I almost feel like you’ve got this very precious resource that you don’t want to mess with, that you want to do your best by. You’re this custodian of the music and you have to do right by it.” (Updated: 10/25/09 7:27 AM )

Even while maintaining its status as one of the few musical acts that still can fill stadiums, U2 is struck by how quickly its world is changing— musically and politically. (Updated: 10/24/09 8:24 AM )

Like so many other people who grew up in the 1960s, my first glimpse of Richie Havens was in the Woodstock concert movie. (Updated: 10/23/09 9:43 AM )

Drummer Stewart Copeland has penned his new memoir, “Strange Things Happen.” (Updated: 10/23/09 8:49 AM )

Man, do Buffalonians love themselves some country music. Sitting in the midst of the rambunctious, sold-out crowd at the “WYRK Acoustic Series” show on Wednesday night, it was clear that our region has a voracious appetite for that contemporary Nashville sound. (Updated: 10/22/09 8:43 AM )

The circus may have rolled into town today, but the real feat of amazing strength was on display Wednesday night in Asbury Hall at Babeville, where multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird rivaled every trapeze artist and acrobat. (Updated: 10/22/09 8:44 AM )

The six string players of the touring chamber ensemble Concertante offered a well-thought-out, prospectively enjoyable program Tuesday evening. Its focus was two of the finest members of the rather lean repertoire for string sextet, those by Korngold and Brahms’ Op. 36. (Updated: 10/21/09 7:56 AM )

Sometimes it seems like there are only two types of blues music — the type that influenced rock, driven by stories told from the gut about life’s ups and downs, and the type that is influenced by rock, driven by long, self-centered guitar solos. (Updated: 10/20/09 7:54 AM )

Never the darlings of the critical establishment, and written off as “caveman rock” by altrock snobs for several decades, AC/DC still managed to become one of the most successful rock bands of all time, selling some 300 million albums since its early ’70s inception. (Updated: 10/19/09 9:38 AM )

AM Stations (Updated: 10/18/09 6:42 AM )

R&B/Pop (Updated: 10/18/09 6:42 AM )

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra’s newest Naxos CD went beyond the dreams of BPO Music Director JoAnn Falletta. Falletta laughs as she recalls conferring with Naxos chief Klaus Heymann over what repertoire should go on the disk. Her suggestion was Ottorino Respighi, whose music the BPO has explored in the past. ¶ Heymann had bigger ideas. ¶ “He said, ‘I think of the BPO as a big music orchestra,’ ” she says. “And this idea came to him.” ¶ Heymann proposed Richard Strauss, a “big music” composer if ever there was one. He and Falletta settled on three very different masterpieces. The first was a suite from Strauss’ popular opera “Der Rosenkavalier.” Second would come a fantasy based on “The Woman Without a Shadow,” an opera Strauss wrote on supernatural themes. And rounding out the recording would be music drawn from an almost never-performed Strauss ballet, “The Legend of Joseph. (Updated: 10/18/09 6:41 AM )

The three works JoAnn Falletta has chosen for this week’s concerts have such an audience-friendly demeanor, in their Romantic and conservative modern expressiveness, that it’s surprising to notice they were written in three different centuries. (Updated: 10/18/09 6:37 AM )

Thursday’s premiere of the 1932 Sextet for Strings in F minor by Marcel Tyberg was the climax of a multi-task event. It also included the annual meeting of the sponsoring Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies and the presentation of awards to Buffalo Philharmonic Music Director JoAnn Falletta and Dr. Enrico Mihich for their tireless efforts on behalf of the Tyberg Musical Legacy Fund, also sponsored by the Foundation. Its goal is to promulgate performances and recordings of Tyberg’s music. (Updated: 10/16/09 8:26 AM )

CLARKSDALE, Miss. — Fans of the playwright Tennessee Williams will be shouting for Stella this weekend in Clarksdale, Miss. (Updated: 10/16/09 6:36 AM )

Catching a great band on its way up is a rare treat. (Updated: 10/13/09 8:49 AM )

The world premiere performance of the 1932 Sextet for Strings by Holocaust victim Marcel Tyberg will be presented at 8 p. m. Thursday in the Mary Seaton Room at Kleinhans Music Hall. This is a free concert event, sponsored by the Tyberg Musical Legacy Fund of Buffalo’s Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies. (Updated: 10/13/09 6:49 AM )

Young Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan aimed to please his audience by featuring the warm and throbbingly emotional Rachmaninoff Sonata, Op. 19, as the centerpiece of his Sunday recital. And judging by the vociferous reception, he succeeded. (Updated: 10/12/09 6:53 AM )

AM Stations (Updated: 10/11/09 7:19 AM )

Jazz (Updated: 10/11/09 7:19 AM )

With her sixth independent release, Alison Pipitone combines all the elements that have made her previous studio recordings connect, adds the roughshod jubilance of her band’s live shows, and comes up with a roots-rock firestarter. (Updated: 10/11/09 8:08 AM )